Should You Hire a Graphic Designer?

One of the most important things a small business generally focuses upon is keeping unnecessary costs down. After all, if you can get by without buying that coffee machine or by getting your office chair at a thrift shop, then what’s the point of spending more? Yet sometimes this impulse to shave costs can lead to worse overall results.

Perhaps the clearest example of this is when it comes to the decision of whether to hire a graphic designer. Many small businesses figure that the logo they’ve come up with is good enough, and don’t bother with anything fancy when creating advertisements or designing letterhead. However, this misunderstanding of the importance of design can easily result in lost sales for your company over the long term.

Having proper signage that fits with your logo, advertisements, and website is extremely important for your brand. In the long term, brand awareness can be the deciding factor in a majority of those potential consumers who were on the fence about using your service. This is why hiring a graphic designer is often a more important decision than ensuring you get the very best credit card for small business. Not hiring a designer can result in far less sales, but the second best credit card will likely perform nearly as well in terms of the overall success of your business.

Graphic designers understand why logos in this day and age need to have scalable designs. The logo as it is seen on your outdoor signage will be slightly different from the one you use in print ads, which in turn will be different from the header of your website, which itself will be further different from your website favicon. To the untrained eye, all of these will look similar, but each has different needs based on the medium that only a graphic designer can accommodate. Overhead signs must take perspective into account; print ads must include high dpi to ensure the resolution looks good; websites need a forward-facing design; and favicons need familiarity without high resolution.

For people not well-versed in graphic design, the best way to explain why designers are necessary is to use an analogy. For most consumers in the United States, credit is a way of life. People buy everything on credit, which makes the average household credit card debt rise over time. Yet those savvy enough to consult a financial planner will know better than the average household and will thereby avoid the pitfall of accruing too much debt. It’s the same with graphic designers. Even if you’re tight on cash, contact your local liberal arts college and get the graphic design teacher to recommend a student to you. You’ll be glad you did.